


The Sometimes Thief: A How To Guide To Reconnecting With Your Father By Finding Your Voice

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Simon Halloway lives with his brother in a small flat. They have a cat. And that's about it on that.Well.Except that they can sing open portals to travel through time.Well.Except Simon's father stole his voice and now he can't.Maybe they will find him soon enough and get it back? Either way, there's still a cat.





	The Sometimes Thief: A How To Guide To Reconnecting With Your Father By Finding Your Voice

**Author's Note:**

> just a novel I'm working on. Figured nobody will read it, but occasionally I'll poke at it.

> One song for noon.  
>  One song for midnight.  
>  Place the first anchor.  
>  Charge from the last light.  
>  One song for summer.  
>  One song for winter.  
>  Race for the ending.  
>  Care not to splinter.  
>  One song for taking.  
>  One song for giving.  
>  Sing your heart faster.  
>  Stripped once of the living.  
>  One song for noon.  
>  One song for midnight.  
>  Take your last anchor.  
>  Use up from the first light.
> 
> -Halloway Nursery Rhyme

* * *

Simon tipped the tea down the drain, watching the steam slither up from the sink in a long, silky line. Perfectly good tea, too. It was a shame to waste it, but Simon wasn’t going to force down a second cup. It was Albert’s fault, of course. Everything was Albert’s fault. And if it wasn’t apparently Albert’s fault, one only needed to trace its lineage back a few hours or weeks or months and there he’d be, ruining everything.

“It’s _not_ my fault,” he’d say, unwinding his long striped scarf from around his neck and hooking it on the coat rack near the door. He’d be wrong. More than that, he’d be lying, which was worse than being wrong, it was intentional wrongdoing. It was villainous and Albert was a perfectly good villain at any given moment. And Simon was there, putting up the good fight, suffering in silence.

Simon lit a cigarette, waived away the matchstick’s bubble of flame and tossed it into the sink after his tea. Not _his_ tea, of course. No, he had enjoyed that in the armchair, leg draped over his knee, subdued by the quiet solitude of the apartment. It was hard to tell if tonight was the night Albert would sing himself home. He liked to peel back right at the beginning of Mondays, ruining the start to an already ugly day. Simon only had to wait. He was always waiting, patient fellow. Trick his father never learned.

He glanced at the microwave, noted he had a few minutes before midnight, and went to go find Cairn while leaving a trail of smoke behind him. If it were time, Cairn would be waiting by the window, pawing at the glass or rubbing his lanky body up and down the pane in a balanced parade.

Simon kept a candle burning on the mantle behind him. Its light was flickering up in the antique glass mirror above it like a little pixie creature. It danced here and there, waving at him. There was a soft sound near one of the armchairs, a little scurrying of ninja-stealth feet, before Cairn hopped up to the window to greet him.

Cairn was a long, leggy boy. Beautiful silvery coat and cold blue eyes. His tail flicked behind him in a slow twitch. He was content with the moon through the window and the familiar brother who watched him during Albert’s sabbaticals. Simon wanted to ask what Cairn thought. Did he sense Albert’s return? Were the wild halloways opening just then, just on the other side of things, tiny and useless and chaotic? But the cat swished his tail, tapped the glass a few times with his paw, and leapt away for Albert’s bedroom. He’d be out Albert’s window and down in the alleyway to hunt for rats for the rest of the night.

So, no Albert.

Tea truly wasted.

Simon finished his cigarette by the fireplace, trying to enjoy it despite the late hour. He was tired. He was more than just tired, he was _exhausted_ and waiting for Albert always made him feel a little wrung out. The cigarette helped. Albert might say something about smoke in the house, but where was he to say it, hmm? Simon looked down at the dark streets below, the clocks striking midnight across the city and closing on any stray halloways that might have split open. Eyelids to wonders that could be sang open now blinking shut. Once all the bells had chimed and all the watches ticked by and all the microwaves and ovens and alarm clocks flipped over to 12:01, Simon snubbed his cigarette in the glass plate beneath the candle, blew it out, and went to bed.

* * *

The first thing he woke to was a weight on his chest. It was curled up and running hot. A sleepy demon was no unusual thing to many who suffered sleep paralysis, but Simon wiggled his fingers and toes and decided this was no such phenomenon. He opened his eyes to see Cairn loafing on his chest, tucked in and purring away. Hunting must have been unsuccessful if he was there begging for attention and food. Simon clicked his tongue, debating whether he should get up and ruin Cairn’s careful slumber or take advantage of it. He slipped his arms free of his comforter and brushed his fingers down Cairn’s back. The cat chirruped a little, leaning into Simon’s palm. A few chin scratches, a few strokes over the top of his head, and Cairn had enough to get him through the day. He nipped Simon’s hand, just a little, right at the base of his thumb. Simon gasped but didn’t pull back because it would only instigate a playful fight and more teeth marks up and down his arm. He waited, felt Cairn’s rough tongue go against his palm before he leapt off and went out of the bedroom.

 _Make up your mind_ , Simon thought before he threw the covers off him. Simon had slept in his clothes again. There were the wrinkled khakis, the rumpled button down, the crumpled argyle sweater vest. He felt a little dizzy as he swung one leg over the edge of his bed, and then the other, stretching his arms above him with an exaggerated yawn. At least he'd remembered to take off his socks.

It was a good start to the day. No socks, sweaty clothes, hair a mess, teeth a little filmy, and Cairn had been decent. Not perfect, but good.

Simon shuffled out of his bedroom. He scratched at his chest, disturbing some of the wiry hair under his clothes as he made his way to the bathroom. He had to travel down the hallway with the seven mirrors of Tirram, a gift from the Matriarch of the Southern H’kbari tribe of 639 BCE. They were all lined up so as to reflect a perfect beam of sunlight at exactly, given that the date of the year and the location of the earth and the sun in relation to each other, 7:32 am. Another day would be another time, but that day, that particular Monday, it was 7:32 am. The beam of light would go up and down the hallway, zipping from entryway to bedroom where it shone its amplified light onto a short bronze bust of Albert’s stupid face. At some point in history it had been used to illuminate a pillar to a forgotten god. But, of course, Albert had rattled the bones and taken the god’s place.

It was a very nice bronze bust. You don’t see that style much these days. Marble, maybe. Or clay.

Simon had missed the lighting ceremony. He’d woken up an hour or so _after_ 7:32 am. However, he noticed the mirrors anyways and he knew exactly where they would point. Albert’s stupid face. And just the knowing made him scrunch up his nose, giving a short snarl at the intricate artwork.

By the time he managed to finish his morning routine and shamble on to the kitchen for a pot of coffee, the sun was well on its way to high noon. Simon didn’t have as rigid a schedule on Mondays. He wasn’t too fond of keeping track of the hours and often let the morning go on as needed before he cracked open his computer. Cairn complained a little about food, but he could hunt his mice in the alleyway. Besides that, Simon had a sneaking suspicion there was another family in the apartment building that he liked to frequent. There was no proof, of course, but he sometimes came back smug as a bug, well-groomed, and disdained any of Simon’s affections. Maybe that was cat’s nature.

The coffee brewed. Simon rinsed out his usual teacup, the same he had drunk from last night, as he grabbed a cigarette and lit it over the sink. He kept it clamped down between his lips while he washed the dishes and spritzed some of the herbs growing on a shelf near one of the windows. The mint was coming in lovely. Maybe later he would try to make some ice cream with it. Bethany Orwoll of 1279B promised to come by and teach him. They’d already tried a strawberry and basil gelato that was, in a word, delightful. Bethany Orwoll was also, in a word, delightful. Simon puffed his cigarette and ruminated on his neighbor when he heard the awful clamor of the landline start to go.

 _What now_ , he thought, rolling his eyes towards the plants. They didn’t answer him. They weren’t sentient by any means. Not in a way that would allow them to communicate and if they did have a voice then that would just put them one up on the man who was watering them. He’d probably cut them all down with a pair of shears if they started up a conversation.

Right, the phone.

Back down the hallway, veering off to the left, there was a spare room that had been converted into an office. There were two desks. There were two chairs. There were bookshelves stacked from floor to ceiling and cluttered with more knickknacks than a flea market. And there was a telephone.

The telephone sat firmly on an antique blotter on Albert’s cluttered side of the room, chirping melodically. Simon was still in the kitchen, but he imagined his journey down the hallway and over to the phone, glaring down at the device while he puffed again on his clamped cigarette. He could answer it. It was hooked up to his TTY screen and there was the relay center to translate, _if_ he wanted. But Simon scrubbed at his teacup, listening to the phone ring four times and then click over to voicemail. Good.

Simon poured himself a cup of coffee, black and pristine as glass, as the phone started to chirp again. How _rude_? He hadn’t taken a sip yet, nor snorted on the edge of the cup, but he did glare down at the reflection of his nose on the other side, waving back at him from the uneven mirror in his coffee. He marched, naked feet slapping the hardwood floor as he made his way towards the dual office. He kept his coffee cup level and tipped up near his chin because even a _damn_ able interruption like a _damn_ able phone call wasn’t going to get him to put that cup down.

The fourth ring came and went, supposedly sending the machine over to voicemail again. There was a click, a little churn, and then a deadline. Simon squinted at the machine as he put the cup up to his lips once more, waiting just a moment. A moment more. Silence stretching on and on with the promise to continue through the rest of the day. Almost certain it was over, he was disappointed to hear the phone go off again.

Simon sighed, sipped a sample of his coffee, tapped his cigarette over an old glass dish on _his_ desk, and flipped the receiver up onto the cradle. His TTY screen lit up a soft green on activation.

“Hello, Mr. Halloway,” came a voice over the line.

Simon blew out over his cup, set it down on the desktop and put his cigarette back between his lips. He typed out a quick response and waited for a call center over in Copenhagen to relay the message back to the irredeemably impolite woman who had rung him up in the first place.

**Afternoon. Who is this?**

“Ah it’s the younger brother,” said the woman. “That explains the service then. Move it ahead.”

She had perhaps covered the phone and leaned a little away to talk to someone else, but Simon wasn’t _deaf_ , despite people’s expectations of the case. He had been right to assume the call was for Albert and was annoyed he was on the line at all. Put a message on the answering machine if they were so stubborn. That’s the _point_ of having an _answering_ machine.

“Mr. Halloway,” said the woman and though his ears were working just fine, her words were also typed out and displayed on the machine in front of him. “This is Jessica Puille. I work with your brother, Albert. It seems he’s been ‘out’ for some time and we were wondering if you could tell us where he’s gone.”

 _Where_. Which either meant Jessica Puille was being clever or she didn’t know. Simon could play along.

**No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t given a return date. Could you tell me again where you’re calling from?**

“Simon,” said Jessica Puille, calm and even. Someone laughed. Couldn’t be her laugh; that was clearly a gentleman in the room with her. A colleague? A confidant? It didn’t matter. “Please tell him when he returns that we’re expecting delivery and if he decides he doesn’t have the stomach, he should expect repercussions.”

Was that a threat? That was a threat. Simon pursed his lips around his cigarette, huffing in hard as he wheeled around to type with more accuracy, speed, and anger. Albert was a villain, sure, but he was still blood and Simon didn’t appreciate this woman’s tone or the giggling man behind her. He had out a paragraph, littered with some choice phrases, before Jessica chimed in without the relay person having a chance to cut her off.

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Halloway,” she said, and hung up.

Several furious jabs with his index finger removed the paragraph telling Ms. Jessica Puille off.

**Who was that?**

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the kid at the relay station, the college student who needed to make extra cash and had to listen in on deaf people’s everyday conversation. The whole system was almost obsolete with cell phones and texting, but rude people like this Jessica Puille called the old land lines still and kept the wheel turning for Copenhagen’s facility. Good for them.

They had to record what was being said, right? They _had_ to. Simon was sure of that. Whoever Jessica Puille was, she wouldn’t give him enough information to let him form an opinion other than the fact that she threatened him. He’d have to look her up now. Just like that, from irredeemably impolite to absolute monster.

 **Never mind** , he typed, adding a quick **Thank you** and **Goodbye** before he hung up the phone.

His cigarette was spent. Simon snubbed it out on the old glass dish on his desk, the one smashed up against Alberts, before he snatched up his coffee from the few untouched stacks on old music theory left there for him to pick up at his leisure. The desk was cold. He didn’t like it in here. The cup, though? Still warm. The little phone conversation hadn’t been enough to let time drain its heat, but he was annoyed that it had taken any time at all. Simon shook his head and sipped his bitter coffee, fuming.

When Albert got back….

Simon chuckled to himself, eyebrows jumping up and down his forehead as a supposed conversation played out between them. Though the fight was imagined, he was winning. But then his Mental-Albert was fighting back, and it just made Simon angrier. Simon came up with rebuttals. Albert made up excuses. Even his imaginary argument wasn’t a clean win. So, he left the office, kicking the door shut behind him.

There was breakfast to be had and the newspaper collected from his mailbox before Simon sat down to officially start his day. BrinTech loaned him the laptop so he could finish up referencing the sequences in their clinical trial, this one colorfully named DELIGHTfuL. BrinTech, the brand behind Brain Bran, _the last bran you’ll ever need_. And, sure, their miracle crops were top of the line, but it was less known their work in medical bioengineering. While the true science to the drug was absolutely beyond him, Simon followed the data like a rabbit chasing carrots as he plugged numbers into the system, citing instances throughout DELIGHTfuL’s data.

Simon was stationed at the kitchen table and he was determined to leave the home office completely alone for the remainder of the day. Hell, nor high water, nor telephone call was going to get him to return to it. There was sunshine to view through the window and Cairn would slink on by now and again, rubbing himself against Simon’s leg as a show of ownership.

The hours were whittled away in their usual fashion. Some of it with actual, honest to God data entry too. The rest were sucked into colorful gem-matching games and flicking through long feeds of amusing texts. His stomach rumbled a few times, but he mostly placated it with coffee and cigarettes until his eyes were too heavy to focus. The numbers blurred in a hazy pasture of gray and green lines. Simon checked his watch and decided he’d put in enough time. He sat back from the kitchen table and stretched, pushing up until his shoulder sockets popped one after the other and then he sighed.

By dinner, Simon had switched himself from coffee to his usual brand of juniper berry tea. His body felt heavy, almost dead. Cairn had scampered off for his usual nightly activities and the apartment was, for the most part, empty. Quiet, too. Simon could lean back and hear the traffic outside or his neighbors muffled noises whimpering through the walls. He even reached out and pressed his hand there on the dull wall to feel the ever-faint vibration of life humming through the mortar. The children in 1263B above, the young couple with their yappy poodle-mix pups in 1243B below. And the dusting of threads that connected this time to every passing moment before them stretched tight through the molecules there underneath, ready to be sung awake. Simon creased his eyebrows at the thought and drew his hand back like he’d been bitten. He glared at the spot on the wall before he turned towards the table.

Just as Simon powered down the laptop and folded the screen down, there was a knock on the door. It was gentle but persistent, quick little raps begging for his attention. Simon checked his watch again and this time, with a genuine smile, he went to greet the person who would intrude on his solitary confinement. He raked his hands quickly over the top of his head through wavy hair, the type most would call dishwater, which seemed rude. People in general seemed rude. Still, Simon swiped it in an attempt at neatness and straightened the tie around his neck before he reached for the door and opened it with a quick tug.

“Tell me you have the bucket in the freezer already or else this is a waste of time and I best just go upstairs and get my tub if we’re not gonna do it right away my arms are heavy dear step out of the way do you see all of this it’s going to taste so good I see the mint right there it’s looking lovely dear lovely and where’s Cairn I want to talk to him about the gift on the doorstep he knows better honestly no not there put it there okay but gently now dear just like that and thank you.”

Simon’s smile grew as he stepped out of way. Bethany Orwoll dropped a paper bag onto the kitchen counter block, a few jars inside clanking against the hard wood. Her nearly breathless sentence filled the room with the noise it was so sorely deprived of all day. She gave him a quart of cold cream in a frosty glass jar as she passed. It stuck to his fingers as the thin layer of ice on the outside melted against his skin. Three more jars appeared, one after the other, from the paper bag. Bethany Orwoll caught her breath, tapped her knuckles on the counter, and turned to face him properly.

“Hello,” she said with a laugh, touching her forehead. A delicate sweep of blonde hair—hers was the sort people called platinum, which was a sight nicer than “dishwater” blonde—fell from the clasp of her seashell-shaped ear and she tucked it away just as promptly. She gave him a brilliant, ruddy-faced smile. “Sorry.”

Simon shook his head and quickly signed not to worry.

“It’s been a day, let me tell you,” said Bethany Orwoll and laughed again. She had a hard laugh, a big laugh that belonged to an opera singer.

 _Tell me_ , he signed, leaning in to accept a quick peck on the cheek. Bethany Orwoll even grabbed his elbow and gave it a vice-like squeeze. He might even bruise from it.

“Sorry,” she said again, singing it over her shoulder. “But, again, did you put it in the freezer or, oh, there it is! Perfect, dear, perfect and I’ll pull up the recipe this is going to be so….”

Simon was snapping to get her attention. Bethany turned, tucked her hip into the counter as she bumped his silverware drawer shut. He mimed taking in a big, sobering breathe, letting it out in a raspy whistle through his big nose. Bethany watched him, her thin lips pricking upwards at the corners before she nodded.

“I know. I _know_. Oh, it’s been a day, let me tell you.”

 _You said that already,_ Simon signed with an easy smile.

“I did, didn’t I?”

Bethany Orwoll brushed her hair away again and dusted her long fingers together, clapping them above the empty sink. She turned away and started pruning pieces of mint off the hearty little plants there on the shelf.

“They put me on a double, you know,” she said, jumping right into her story. “And I don’t mind working doubles, but this woman came in today, right? Nastiest, most foul-mouthed lady I’ve ever seen if I live and breathe and you know me, I don’t mind a bit if you cuss me or mine out but to your own daughter? The girl was eight. Needed a trim for school pictures. Oh Lord, every time a mother comes in thinking she knows how best to cut a girl’s hair for school pictures. Pictures! An immortal moment, right? It’ll be pulled out and looked at for years to come I know. Have I shown you mine? Bowl cut and salmon-striped sweater. Classic. Vintage. Best in the class, would you stop laughing? Well, laughing like you laugh. I know the difference, dear, don’t try me. Do you have any from when you were a kid? No, pictures, of course the pictures, of course the. Well, I haven’t seen anything of you two, now that I think about it. I bet your brother looked like a beanpole, right? Still hasn’t grown into that nose of his. Family trait. No, I’m not being rude, put your hands down.”

Simon huffed if only as a joke before he put his hands back on the table, drumming them gently. He leaned against the high-backed stool by the kitchen island, put one leg across his knee, and cradled his face in his left hand as he watched Bethany Orwoll work. Any other time he might reach for the packet of cigarettes tucked neatly into the rectangle pocket of his shirt, but Bethany Orwoll stated several times that it was a nasty habit and he ought to quit right away. She had stopped commenting on the smell as long as he didn’t light one in front of her, and that was a sort’ve success in his book.

“…and if Dave weren’t such a limp-livered coward, I woulda just had him toss them _both_ out, y’know? I mean, I can’t blame carpel tunnel or anything, but I’ll go ahead and do it anyway because I’m just too damn tired to say otherwise.”

Simon nodded, even if most of the speedy conversation went through one ear and out the other. He enjoyed the way her hands flickered across the mint leaves or the way she bounced around his small kitchen, dancing in the low electric light from a lamppost outside the window. The spotlights of the tulip-shaped track sconces above them only added an extra halo to her hair, forcing her into the blocky shadows of a woman taking center stage. He smiled and rested a hand beneath his chin. He only had to nod now and again to let her know he was physically in the room. Sometimes he mimed a laugh and she enjoyed it every time he did.

“…a bit of dark chocolate here, just like this and I know we already discussed, but this is the good stuff this time, I promise. Checked and checked and checked again.” Bethany Orwoll brushed her hands across the front of her apron, a little floral print piece she’d sewn herself with ruffles around the bottom edge and two polka dot pockets stitched to the front. It was very adorable. Very odd stretched across her firm, straight-backed frame and in stark contrast to her no-nonsense bob haircut and minimal makeup. She wore more for work, she said, and he didn’t understand if he needed to believe her. The way she looked just now? Simon thought the combination made her absolutely beautiful.

 _Wait, wait,_ Simon signed, finally getting up from the stool. He went around the kitchen island and stood next to her so that they were framed in the imperfect lighting overhead. _Don’t skip the steps and not show me. I want to learn too._

“And here I thought you were just dozing away there,” said Bethany Orwoll. She smiled, crinkling those big dark eyes of hers.

 _Never_ , he signed back, serious as a deadly disease.

“Alright, well, be sure to pay attention,” she said, even as she continued chatting on about the drama of a salon, the drama of grocery stores, the drama of neighbors and bills and animals and traffic and weather and missing fingernail clippers and mismatched socks and ugly paintings at the bank and illegible handwritten notes on Chevy Silverado trucks parked behind gas stations. The world was a delightful tapestry with color and sound and pains the which Simon hadn’t ever dreamed of before he heard them all spill out of Bethany Orwoll and her fast moving lips. Thank god he was only mute, or else he might have to learn how to read those pretty thin lips of hers.

The thought made Simon blush, and he ducked away to get more mint at her instructions.

They steeped the mint leaves in milk and cream, set to simmer as they chopped up the dark chocolate and fawned over recipes for other delicious treats for later. Simon whisked away at a bowl of egg yolks and sugar and Bethany Orwoll fussed with a double burner to melt some chocolate to ribbon into the ice cream. Neither of them had successfully melted the chocolate before, but, tonight, there was something like magic sprinkling in the air and Simon had faith in their creation. He smiled when she smiled, he wheezed out a soundless laugh when she laughed. They both admired Cairn when he graced them with his presence. And they took samples of the chocolate like they were sneaking a secret.

By the time the ice cream maker was churning up their creation, they were both enjoying a cup of tea. Bethany took her orange spice with a touch of honey while Simon finished off a package of his Juniper Berry. Bethany didn’t let a moment go by without explaining one of her many stories complete with long, flurried movements of her fingers. Her body got involved with the storytelling as much as her mouth did. She was, if anything, a performer, and Simon her sole audience. So, it might be forgiven that they both neglected the chocolate melting and forgot to pour it into the mint ice cream creation until it was hard and dry and flaky. They ditched it anyways and tossed in shavings as they went, laughing over the ruined chocolate.

“Oh god is that the time?” Bethany Orwoll asked as she pulled her watch face up and glared at it. “Simon, dear, I have to open tomorrow. Please promise me you won’t have a bite until we can try it together?”

Simon checked the clock on the wall. God, it was getting late. He kept his disappointed sigh to himself and signed at her that he swore, on pain of death, he wouldn’t touch their ice cream until she could come by with spoons.

“And chocolate sauce to drizzle on top, I promise,” she said, gathering up her empty jars and stuffing them carefully back into the paper bag. She touched his arm again, once everything was all together, and he followed her to his door. “Thank you again, Simon, I mean it. This was just what the doctor ordered.”

Simon smiled and was surprised when she leaned over and gave him another peck on the cheek. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought she lingered a little, that her lips were just a touch moist and they left a shadow of her lip stain there on his skin. He didn’t dare touch the spot to rub away the imprint.

“Tomorrow,” she said, and helped herself out of the apartment. Simon waved and watched her go down the hallway to the staircase at the end and then waited a moment afterwards, even when she was gone. Just in case she looked back. Just in case.

Simon pressed against the door, smiling to himself as he licked away some of the dark chocolate still haunting his tongue. His cheeks felt hot and his hands were cold, but his heart was just right. He knocked his knuckles on the door and heard an echo of the sound come from the window. Simon paused, listening intently. Surely a trick. He twisted to see the cheap clock on the wall in the kitchen and squinted at the numbers. Not even half past ten. There was no way—

There was a crash and a loud thud as something broke in Albert’s room. Cairn would never be so careless as to break something and the weight of the object that fell was too heavy to just be the cat. There was a second, softer noise, and Simon quickly ran from the door, heading straight for the bedroom. But he was beat when the door swung open and a familiar face beamed out at him, unwrapped by increments as Albert peeled away his stupid striped scarf.

“Simon!” he said, dusting away some rainfall from his messy mouse-colored hair. He turned away too quickly for Simon to see his face, if just a moment. Then, whatever he had mouthed to himself, he turned back again. “What a surprise!”

 _What!_ Simon signed, skidding to a halt. He stared, eyebrows furrowed, lips a straight line of undeniable anger. He finally turned and pointed at the clock, tapping his wrist. _How? It’s not midnight!_

“Hey, before I answer any of your questions, please please _please_ tell me we have something to eat?” Albert clasped his hands in front of him and shook them in a desperate prayer. He pouted, his face wet and miserable. The other side of the halloway must’ve been a storm.

This was impossible. This has always been impossible. The clock did _not_ say midnight. Albert only knew the song for midnight. That was the rule. That was the hard truth of his halloway. One song for noon. One song for midnight.

What.

The.

“Right, move, Si,” Albert said, trying to skirt around Simon, who was struck dumb in the hallway.

There was surely words to be shared, at least by one of them. Simon’s mouth flopped open and closed, a useless pantomime of speech, when he heard that small sound again and looked down at the face of a young child standing in his brother’s shadow. Albert followed Simon’s horrified gaze and touched the child’s head, pushing back some of the short messy spikes of blonde hair. Dishwater.

“Oh, also. Uh. Meet my daughter.”

Albert smiled down at Simon as he patted the girl’s head. She didn’t smile. She didn’t move. Her clothes and hair were as damp as Albert’s. A baggy gray shirt buckled down around her arms and across her chest with darker gray pants zipped up both sides of her legs. She had bruised eyes, pouty lips, and the budding Halloway nose. There was a small green gem dangling from each of her perfect c-shaped ears. Standing there next to Albert, it was impossible to miss the similarities in their physical attributes. Simon felt his knees go a little shaky at the sight.

What!

“I _think_ ,” Albert added with emphasis and made his way towards the kitchen to rummage for food. The girl followed.


End file.
